The Verizon Foundation has donated grants totaling $100,000 to the Foundation of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey for an innovative, wireless technology program designed to reduce the time it takes to begin treatment of heart attack victims.

The Verizon grants support STAT-MI, which uses wireless technologies and software, linked to a network, to transmit high-resolution electrocardiograms from an ambulance directly to a cardiologist at UMDNJ-The University Hospital (UH).

A hospital-based physician views the electrocardiogram readings on a smart phone within 90 seconds of their transmission. If a cardiologist verifies that the patient in having a heart attack, the patient is brought directly to the cardiac catherization laboratory, bypassing the emergency room and saving valuable time in the process. This process has already been shown to decrease patients' time to treatment by as much as 131 minutes.

"Every minute counts when someone is having a heart attack," points out Dr. Marc Klapholz, MD, professor of medicine and director of cardiology, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School and director of cardiology, UMDNJ-The University Hospital.

Twelve of the UH's ambulances are equipped with the STAT-MI technology.